Global headlines are dominated with much ado about Trumping. Everyone has something to say, Japan being slowest to judge, judging nonetheless. In a declining world of failed political correctness, controversial reactions to Trump almost indicate who might have been doing something wrong and who just might be doing something right.
It is more and more difficult to categorize headlines into countries. The Pacific Conflict has become so intertwined that the publishing world will soon shift to taxonomies using a plurality of tags rather than mutually-exclusive categories. Any more, every news article seems to involve more than one country and it’s going to confuse the librarians.
Japan takes a hardline against China, but doesn’t want Trump’s help, taking a hardline against Trump for taking a hardline against Japan and China. China wants Japan and Trump to keep quiet as it militarizes islands that, technically, don’t exist, at least in the minds of everyone except China. China seems to have map-reporting conflicts with nearly everyone, Trump and Japan notwithstanding. Beijing’s explanation for nearly everything is that other countries don’t want diplomacy with China. Though, by claiming disputed lands and demonstrating authority over what Japan can and can’t talk about, it seems that China isn’t interested in diplomacy either, at least as much as it is in domination.
Nothern Korea jailed a college student for wanting to take Kim propaganda to the US—missing the point that usually one wants one’s propaganda spread around, that is, if one believes that one’s own propaganda is true. Maybe the North’s failing economy has caused a shortage in propaganda, which seems more and more necessary to convince the Northerners that their economy isn’t failing.
Japan just banned 22 North Koreans from re-entering Japan, one of them a graduate of the University of Tokyo. Why Japan let a North Korean study Japanese rocket science in the first place remains unknown. Perhaps Japan prefers North Korea’s diplomatic methods over Donald Trump’s. There appears to be no word from Japan about whether they agree with Trump on North Korea.